I don’t consider the death penalty to be homicide, so this is a non-starter for me. The problem is that it might not be justice.
I’m an atheist but in a way I do think humans are more “sacred” than other animals. I think we have a sentience no other species even approaches.
It’s definitely homicide. The question is, is it murder?
Exactly. It’s like asking why scorpions are so sting-y.
I think this is where the disconnect starts. Why is the death penalty necessarily cruel and hateful? If one person takes another person’s property and that person takes it back, is that person being selfish? If one person physically attacks a person and that person hits back, is he being aggressive and violent?
Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t people who support the death penalty who do so for reasons of vengeance, just like there are people who might might be the initial aggressor, but will certain “put an end” to a fight another started. But if one reacts strongly enough to end the aggression, rather than with excessive force, I would argue that that person is not only not violent and aggressive, but he is acting in a just way.
But this seems to be where the death penalty breaks down between those for and against it. What is the purpose of the justice system? If it is about justice precisely, then balance is an important aspect, that a punishment should fit the crime, not only by not being excessive (perhaps brutally murdering someone as a spectacle), but also by not being less (by not taking the life of a murderer). Obviously, to some extent we already make concessions away from pure justice, by generally aiming for more humane methods of the death penalty than were likely afforded to their victims.
Ultimately though, despite that we call it the justice system, it involves a balance of a number of other virtues besides just justice, like temperance, mercy, logic, even compassion. I think the real question isn’t whether or not the death penalty is just, but rather how much we value we place on the other virtues in the balance. Certainly, as a society, we need to expect balance and fair-treatment, and justice goes a long way to do that, but we also realize that in some situations other virtues should prevail.
I think it’s easy to look at proponents of the death penalty in such simplistic terms, and there certainly are a lot of loud proponents who make it clear their motivation is vengeance, but I don’t think it’s fair to view all proponents in that light. To that end, I’m glad someone upthread already mentioned the prisoners dilemma and the tit for tat response because I think it illustrates that, it originated not as a means of retribution, to punish those who break the rules established by society, or as a deterrent to not break the rules, but more as a means of reinforcing to those that do, that the rules are really there. The criminals are a small part of society, but those who generally follow the rules of society need to trust the rules to keep society together.
For example, let’s take a completely social rule, like lines/queues. In general, people will line up and patiently wait their turn with no problem because we all have expectations about how lines work, and as long as everyone plays along, we’re all good. If someone tries to cut and doesn’t get a social response, maybe that’s not a huge deal, but how many times can people cut in line before we reach the point where people lose confidence in the line and the system breaks down? And if the people waiting lose confidence in that idea of waiting in line, we end up with people getting trampled. This is why balance and justice is important.
Or for another example, take the crash several years ago, and look at how long it took to recover. Yes, a lot of people wanted to see those responsible burn and they wanted blood. But ultimately, I think the fact that society didn’t really see anyone get punished, and saw people get away with breaking the rules, it took a long time for consumer confidence to return.
OK, it’s justifiable homicide. By definition it’s not murder, and I don’t see a problem with that definition legally or ethically.
Adolf Hitler and Anne Frank were both participants in the Holocaust and both of them ended up dying as a result. But that doesn’t mean they’re entitled to equal amounts of sympathy.
(Hey, somebody was going to Godwinize this thread.)
The article goes on to discuss the progression from blood vengence to institutionalized revenge/justice. That evolution is also covered in Deuteronomy 19 (happens to be part of my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah Torah portion) … part of the bigger section that includes the famous: “Justice, justice shall you pursue …” The established system of blood vengence, where kinships avenged the death of one of their own, was replaced with asylum cities for the accused to escape to and to be judged with a standard of proof (two witnesses). But if the person was found guilty then “hand him over to the blood-avenger to be put to death; you must show him no pity.”
Now I am not a believer in the death penalty but without question an institutionalized death penalty and a sense of proportionate punishment based on proof of guilt, was a large improvement over Hatfield and McCoy type blood feuds.
Revenge is hard-wired into us and many studies document that when we feel we have been wronged punishing the transgressor is highly valued even at significant additional cost to ourselves.
Another pertinent article:
Our social brains are evolved to cheat if the risk of getting caught times the cost of getting caught are less than the benefit gained by cheating. Functional society therefore requires equal brain power devoted to detecting and punishing the cheaters at levels suffiicent to deter that choice.
Who the hell is advocating “hand waving it away”? Certainly not the OP, nor the vast majority of death penalty opponents. Nobody is suggesting nothing should be done about murderers or other types of criminal, both to stop them doing it again and to deter others from doing the same sort of thing. The point is just that it does not have to be done in a spirit of vengeance, retribution, and hatred, and does not have to be any more cruel than the legitimate aims of deterrence and prevention of repeat crimes would justify. (From what I have heard, although it may be a bit counter-intuitive, the evidence suggests that capital punishment is no more effective a deterrent to murder than imprisonment.)
I am a supporter of the death penalty.
If you take away someone else’s life, why should you have the opportunity to walk around free one day? The victim doesn’t have that option. Or life without parole. What good does that really do for society? Let’s feed a murderer three meals a day and give them a place to lie their head at night. That doesn’t seem fair to me. There are people in our country that don’t have food in their bellies or a bed to sleep in. I would much rather use my tax dollars to help those people than support a killer for the rest of his life.
But I also believe that the death penalty should be reserved for those that admit their crimes or have been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to have committed the crime they are accused of.
For some people they believe in eye for an eye, but I think that people that knowingly commit a crime, such as murder, in a state that has the death penalty should be prepared to deal with the consequences. You don’t steal a dog’s bone and expect them not to bite, right?
For kicks, some polling data.
I recently lost a Facebook “friend” due to supporting a state paid gender reassignment surgery for a convicted murderer.
I used to live in Moscow. Borscht is served hot.
I admit that sometimes when I read of a horrific crime, something flares up in me and makes me think, “Yea, let’s torture the evil SOB!!”
But then I step back and realize this mentality doesn’t serve a purpose. Torturing the SOB doesn’t deter others from being SOBs. Torturing the SOB doesn’t bring the victims back. Likely the SOB is so forgone that torturing him won’t do anything anyway. So revenge may feel good in the short-term, but it doesn’t do anything but temporarily decrease people’s bloodlust. And bloodlust is why there are SOBs in the first place.
VERY interesting. I wonder if there is a strong correlation between believing in spanking your children and the death penalty as well.
If so, then shouldn’t they be held to a higher standard? We euthanize dogs which kill even though their owners insist that they are gentle animals. Should we allow reasoning beings capable of murder access to other humans if they have proved incapable of using their powers of reason to maintain civility?
Monstro, I’ll make a guess here that less people are murdered due to bloodlust than because of addiction, neglect, disease. We do have those psychos out there but as I have said elsewhere, if we knew everything about their individual backgrounds, hardly anyone could be held accountable for their violence.
Exactly. And actually it seems like the more violent punishments are practiced, the more the public demands them, being that support for the death penalty tends to decline after a country gets rid of it.
Damn. Hard to imagine being that invested…
I just want to say that I think this conversation is suffering from muddiness. Distinction should be made between “vengeance” and “punishment”. They are not the same thing.
I’ve never been inclined to equate the death penalty with vengeance. I’ve always thought of it as a method of culling the herd. Complex systems usually need ways to repair or jettison defective elements.
Most people have some sense of justice, fair play, or whatever you want to call it. When someone transgresses we want to see them punished even if we’re not the ones they transgressed against. On the flip side we also like stories where someone does something right and is rewarded for it.